European Union (Amendment) Bill

The noble and learned Lord and Edward Heath performed a masterly exercise in their short Bill in profoundly altering the constitutional relationship. Other pieces of legislation have done so. Whenever we enter into a treaty—not just a treaty under the European Union—we alter what could be called constitutional relationships. I had the pleasure and burden of having to read the whole treaty in this case as a member of Sub-Committee E of the Select Committee on the European Union. I am bound to say that compared with previous treaties, including Maastricht and our original adherence, this is an important one but I would not dream of attaching the term ““constitutional importance”” to it, making it more important to our arrangements than all the other treaties to which we have adhered as members of the European Community. The real questions, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Owen, indicated, are not formalistic ones about whether a Bill is constitutional or whether a treaty is right for us to join. It is the merits that matter, and I would find it extraordinary if Parliament were to decide to write into this Bill for this treaty the words in the amendment, which could apply to a great string of Bills implementing international treaties over the past 40 years. The question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is the right one, and the answer given by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, is not the proper answer.